Chapter 8 - First Day 3

Chapter 8

Kamarul led the warm activity by showing the exercise first. Then, he would walk around the students and help fix their posture.

"Raise your hand higher."

"Pull further. Okay, that's good."

"Don't be shy."

"More. More. Good."

Kamarul's voice rang out each time he showed a part of the stretching exercise. Other than the experienced students, the new students were all corrected on their posture.

The stretching or warm-up would usually take around five to ten minutes but because of the newbie, it lasted for almost twenty minutes.

Kamarul was not angry about this because he knew many were newbies. The warm-up exercise was important before they started their practice to lower their chance for injury.

Thus, he took it seriously and taught the newbies properly. If by chance they suffered injuries on the first day, it would cause a huge problem for him.

Other than that, since he knew they were newbies, he only taught them simple warm-up exercises. He would add more bit by bit to let them get used to it as time passed by.

This only applied to the newbies. The experienced students all decided to add more as they felt it was not enough. Kamarul was also the one who instructed them to do that. He did not abandon them though as he would also make sure they did the right thing.

After the warm-up was done, Kamarul glanced at the students. From their expressions after doing the warm-ups, he knew that many of them had low stamina.

"Shooter Ball or any other sports demands a lot of stamina and endurance from their players. As I can see now, other than these seven people, the others have low stamina," Kamarul pointed at the experienced sports students.

"We need to build up your stamina and endurance before we can allow you to be in a game. There is a 400m track field outside. I want everyone to run 5 laps in 15 minutes," Kamarul said.

"If you can do that, you will be allowed to be in any competition we will be participating in after this. If you cannot reach the target of 5 laps in 15 minutes, you are not allowed to be in any competition," Kamarul said.

Everyone was shocked including Haikal and Badrul. Their aim was not the championship but the participation mark.

Now that the coach had put in this restriction, they could only work hard to meet the target, or else, their co-curriculum mark would be low and that was not good for their University admission.

"I am not the only one doing this. This is an order from the higher-ups," Kamarul sternly looked at them. He and the higher-ups knew what the students were planning. The school knew it too. Even the education ministry was aware of it.

It might have sounded like this order was from Cili Padi Club's higher-ups but it was an order from the government. They did this a long time ago. It was just kept secret from students below the senior high.

"Let's record your first day running now. You can see students from other schools are moving to the field too," Kamarul added while pointing at their surroundings.

Everyone looked at the students from other schools. Some of them looked relaxed but most of them looked constipated.

The one who looked relaxed had the same expression as the students who did sports in their school. The constipated one looked a lot like a newbie from their school.

*Pweet!*

"Let's go!" Kamarul spoke after blowing his whistle.

Haikal and Badrul looked at each other and gave a wry smile. They thought it would be easy but they were wrong. They intended to take it easy but their plan failed.

If they wanted to get a good mark in their co-curriculum, they needed to put in a bit more effort. At least, they needed to qualify to enter the competition.

"How fast can you run?" Badrul asked in a low voice.

"I don't think I can pass this today," Haikal frowned.

"Huh???" Badrul sounded confused and he continued, "Didn't you jog a lot?"

"That… I am not jogging but walking. Walking for an hour a day a few times a week is also enough to keep my body healthy," Haikal replied with an added excuse.

Haikal usually went out jogging a few times a week when he felt like it and Badrul was aware of this. However, although he told Badrul he went jogging, he was just walking. It was not even a fast walk but a normal walk around the neighbourhood.

When he went jogging, he was playing with his phone at the time and did not take his jogs seriously. Thus, he ended up walking instead of jogging. Since even walking made him sweat, he kept doing it. Now, he was in a pinch.

"I don't think it will be that hard. If we train for a few days, we might be able to enter the 15 minutes range," Haikal kept a positive mind.

"Also, if we push ourselves a bit today, we possibly can enter the range too," Haikal added but Badrul was a bit skeptical about Haikal's positivity.

"Oh! I forgot to mention," Kamarul suddenly spoke while he led them to the field.

"You need to maintain this every week. If you want to participate in a competition, you need to always be in the range for at least three weeks before the competition. If you cannot do that, don't even think about the competition," Kamarul smiled but the other's face darkened.

"Also, the club has prepared an app to keep track of your results. Download the app from our website once you get home today."

"For today, I will record your results manually."

The newbies fell silent while the experienced students did not have much change to their faces.

Everyone arrived at the track field and they could see many students from other schools were running around on the track.

A few students were running without much problem and their pace was steadied for a long time.

There were also a few students that could barely keep up after a few laps.

Then, there were many students who lost their steam after a lap of the track field too.

Moreover, a few that could not even finish one lap before they started wheezing for air were also present on the track field.

Haikal and Badrul saw this dreaded scene and were not sure if they would do better than them. In an age where sports were super popular, they were an embarrassment.

Kamarul took out a stopwatch and said, "Ready!"

Haikal and Badrul were shocked. 'Are we starting now?' They immediately prepared to run.

"Go!"